• Acceptable Inventions
  
• Team Requirements
  
• Eligibility
  
• Additional Rules
  
• Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Policies
  

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Acceptable Inventions

PennVention accepts invention ideas pertaining to a broad range of industries including but not limited to:

• Consumer products
• Medical Devices
• Environmental Devices
• Electronics
• High-Tech products

PennVention reserves the right to reject any invention submission for the following reasons:

• Deemed to be in violation of the University's Code of Conduct or Code of Academic Integrity
• Violates any local, state or national law
• Appears to be pornographic in nature

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Team Requirements

• Any team with at least one active member who is a degree-candidate student of the University of Pennsylvania (graduate or undergraduate) may enter. A degree-candidate student of the University of Pennsylvania must show that he/she was an active member throughout the creation and development process, register the team with a University of Pennsylvania email address, and serve as the team leader. A standard partnership agreement is available for teams participating in PennVention. A partnership agreement is not required to enter the contest but is available to teams should they desire a formal partnership.
• There is no limit as to the maximum or minimum number of people on each team.
• Individual students may enter.
• An individual may participate on more than one team and/or submit more than one invention.
• At least one team member must have been substantially involved in the actual creation of the invention submitted to PennVention.
• All original inventors of the invention must consent to its submission to PennVention.

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Eligibility

• Teams that have received twenty-five thousand dollars or more from outside financing (including but not limited to financing from Angel Investor(s), Venture Capital or other Private Equity) before February 10, 2009 will not be eligible to apply for the Achievement Round.
• Last year's top three winners cannot participate in this year's PennVention competition with the same idea.

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Additional Rules

• No participant may under any circumstances attempt to contact a judge during or before the competition.
• Any such behavior will result in the disqualification of the participant and his/her team from PennVention.
• Recognizing that mentors have significant time constraints, teams are expected to be well prepared and focused during all meetings with mentor. No-shows (for either phone or in-person meetings) will be immediately disqualified from PennVention and will not be permitted to apply for a later round either with the current idea, or a new idea. At various stages in the competition, both the team and its mentor are expected to evaluate and provide feedback to PennVention.
• Participants who have any questions regarding potential conflicts of interest for any judges at any stage of PennVention should address them immediately to pennvent@seas.upenn.edu.
• Teams will be required to complete the PennVention Memorandum of Understanding. This non-obligatory document will demonstrate an agreement within their team regarding their product or service they plan to commercialize. For more information, and to download the document, visit the Resources page.

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Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Policies

Confidentiality

PennVention honors the confidentiality of all participants' inventions and ideas that are submitted. Any materials submitted will not be copied or viewed for any purposes other than use in PennVention.

Judges, mentors and organizers will have access to invention submissions. Judges and mentors are selected on the basis of their experience and reputation and are asked and expected to use the same care and respect for confidentiality as they do in reviewing designs, business ideas and product concepts in their everyday lives. Many actual and prospective participants in PennVention are concerned that confidentiality agreements be secured; however, as a matter of convention and practicality, confidentiality agreements are not signed as part of the PennVention.

Teams may choose to include the following optional disclaimer as a footer on their presentation deck or on the cover sheet on their submissions. This disclaimer, not a legally binding agreement, will also help to preserve any patentable rights the submitted invention may have:



University Claims on Student-developed Technology

Students at the University of Pennsylvania who develop new technologies and/or new ventures while enrolled at the University can be assured that the University does not have a claim on the intellectual property of the student's technology or venture unless one of the following applies:

• The student has worked with compensation under the direct supervision of a faculty member or researcher whose costs are being borne at least in part by the University for that specific idea.
• The student has worked under a research grant or other research sponsorship for that specific idea.
• The student is commercializing a technology or discovery that was made by a faculty member or other University researcher.
• The student has engaged services of a University department and has agreed otherwise as a condition of receiving such services.

These provisions do not apply to individuals who are paid salaries by the University of Pennsylvania. In general, except as noted above, tuition-paying students are encouraged to put their efforts into seeking guidance from faculty members and other resources at the University with the assurance that such action in itself will not result in an intellectual property claim on their work by the University.

Internal Review of Intellectual Property

Inventions should be of patentable subject matter, should be novel, useful and non-obvious and should not infringe any existing trademark, copyright, or patent. All PennVention submissions will be subject to an internal review of intellectual property, conducted by the PennVention and the Innovation Fund Committees. Occasionally PennVention may require additional documents beyond the original submission as a part of this review process. Failure to provide any documents requested for the internal review of intellectual property could result in disqualification from the competition.

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The PennVention Committee reserves the right to disqualify a team if any member has violated a rule, policy, or regulation specified on this webpage. Each member of a team is assumed to have a full understanding of the rules, policies, and regulations on this webpage PRIOR to submitting an idea to PennVention. Any questions regarding the material presented on this webpage should be directed to pennvent@seas.upenn.edu.

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